“Like what, exactly? Your solution was to hand everyone over to Katashi. Given time, Vera is probably going to go free, because she cooperated. That probably pleases you, and in Katashi’s mind, it probably passes for ‘justice’. But when she goes back home, she’s going to make more weapons. And someday, those weapons are going to be used to kill thousands of people, maybe more.”
“Killing Vera wouldn’t have stopped artificial attunement research. They’ve been doing it for decades.”
“No, but it might have slowed down one particular research branch — the people focused on making artificial god beast attunements. Those terrify me, Corin. And they should terrify you, too. You saw what Mizuchi was capable of; the god beasts themselves are far worse.”
I had a vivid memory of the damage that Mizuchi had caused, and how close we’d come to being annihilated just by being close enough to be hit by a shockwave from her breath. “You’re right… and that’s what you wanted to happen to Valia.”
Jin winced. “I didn’t want that, but you’re right — I thought it was the right answer. Katashi might have wiped out the people in Valia who were commissioning those god beasts, and maybe even gone after the people in Caelford, too. It was a messy solution. Not perfect, by any means. My hope would be that Katashi would have shown restraint, and only targeted the people responsible for all this.”
I tightened my jaw. “We both know Katashi wasn’t in a good frame of mind to show restraint.”
Jin shrugged. “I suspect he would have if I had a chance to tell him the responsible parties and some more details about what they were working on.”
I folded my arms. “We didn’t have that much information.”
Jin turned his head away. “No. You didn’t have that much information. I did.”
I stared at him for a moment, uncertain.
When I finally replied, I was furious. “What? What the resh haven’t you been telling me? I thought you weren’t a spy.”
Jin laughed. “I’m not a spy, Corin. I just did more digging than you did, and I didn’t tell you everything. You certainly haven’t told me everything, either.”
“When did you possibly have time to do ‘more digging’? And why wouldn’t you tell me?”
Jin ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “You remember the morning before we went to see Vera? When we got the Jaden Box?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“Remember how I was already at the Divinatory when you arrived?”
I drew in a breath. “…Yeah?”
“I’d been there for hours. First, the night before, I learned about Vera and the project designation Q-STN. Researcher wouldn’t help me initially, so I went through files myself. Eventually, she got so frustrated by my inefficiency that she told me she’d send an information request to Alaris Academy for me. When I came back in the morning, it was approved, and she handed over a set of documents.”
That didn’t make me any happier. “I trusted you to look into that for me while we were in there. And you…”
“…already had the information, and distracted you with the Jaden Box, which was completely unrelated. Yes.”
I balled my hands into fists. “Why? What did you find?”
“Information on the artificial attunement project that Vera was working on. Researcher still wouldn’t give me everything, but there was enough in there to form an ugly picture. The most relevant portion? Vera was not just an Analyst, or a mere participant in the project. She was the director for the entire ‘god beast attunement’ project. There was someone above her in charge of artificial attunements in general, but Vera had a critical role.”
“That still doesn’t justify trying to murder her. Even a project director can be replaced.”
He shook his head. “I’m not finished. They took some sensible precautions when working on those attunements, with the knowledge that giving children power that could eventually grow to god beast levels was tremendously dangerous.”
Jin took a breath. “One of those precautions was a set of control sigils built into the artificial attunements – and linked directly to unique marks on the project director. Much how a return bell has an anchor, these marks were inexorably intertwined. To prevent anyone else from accessing the control seals, a part of Vera’s mana was stored inside the artificial attunements on the children. If a control command came from anyone else, it wouldn’t work.”
I processed that. “You’re saying that Vera had a means of controlling any one of these artificial attuned, like Orden controlled Derek?”
“Precisely. This is, I believe, why she was so important to everyone. Not just her knowledge, but because she is the key to controlling the existing attuned. They could make more, but it took several years to get a viable test case. My hope was that if I removed Vera from the equation, the intervening years would be enough time for Katashi to shut down the projects entirely.”
“Why wouldn’t you have told me something that important? I might have…”
“Your mother is one of the people who approved testing Echion’s abilities in the Serpent Spire.”
I stopped and stared. “What?”
“Laura Lyran was on the list, along with several other city council members. And no, I don’t know your mother’s name because of any sort of spying. Sera mentioned ‘Lady Lyran’ in conversation, and I connected her with the council member that you and I saw in the memory crystal with Keras. I judged that you would be less likely to cooperate in anything that might lead Katashi to take steps against your mother.”
I glowered at him. “You were going to point Katashi toward potentially killing my mother?”
“I don’t think he would have taken such an extreme step against someone who simply signed the paperwork on the Valia side for running the tests. But I did anticipate you having this reaction, which is why I didn’t tell you about what I’d learned. I could have omitted part of it – like that your mother was involved – but if I’d told you the beginning portion, you might have dragged the rest of it out of Researcher yourself. And then you very likely would have abandoned the whole mission.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just settled for angry. “You lied to me.”
“Mostly in terms of omission, but yes. But in fairness, Vera lied to you, too. First when you were in the jail cell, then later when we—”
I cut him off. “I don’t care about Vera. You manipulated me toward taking steps that could have resulted in harming my mother.”
“I’m sorry for that. But I still believe I did the right thing. You would not have responded rationally, and there was too much at stake.”
“I was relying on you.” I took a step closer, my hand still balled.
Jin pulled away, alarmed. “I truly am sorry, Corin…”
“I don’t care if you’re sorry, Jin. That’s not good enough.”
“Let me make it up to you, then. Please.” His voice was pleading.
“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Did you even consider what would happen to those children with the attunements if you’d done things your way?”
Jin nodded slowly. “Even if Katashi killed them, which I doubt, it would be better than letting them be used as weapons of war. And if you have any doubt that is what they would have been used for, you’re deluding yourself.”
“You could have told me this. I would have listened to you. We could have—”